Chapter 80: Privileges of the Rogue Leader

Nadir Sha could hardly breathe. He was not even sure if he was still alive, or if his soul had already been torn out of his chest and left behind in the dirt.

Awakening an SSS+ talent early in the apocalypse had made his entire journey through the ruined world far easier than it had any right to be.

None of the wandering zombies, no matter how mutated or aggressive, had ever managed to so much as scratch him.

That was precisely why he had grown so arrogant, believing that even if something went completely wrong and his subordinate swallowed the zombie core, his absolute domain would easily protect him from any fallout.

He had never expected that damned idiot of a subordinate to mutate into something so utterly, uncontrollably terrifying.

Nadir Sha groaned softly as he stared down at his battered limbs. There were deep, jagged scratches all over his body, sustained purely from bailing out of the moving transport vehicle in blind panic, but his high-tier talent had at least managed to filter out any lingering zombie infection from entering his bloodstream.

’Fuck... I am actually alive,’ he thought to himself, his chest heaving as he tried to regulate his ragged breaths.

Then, his shifting gaze accidentally landed on the Rogue leader’s daughter. His heart dropped straight into his stomach, freezing every drop of blood in his veins as he stared at the little girl.

’She’s not even the size of an apple.’

Just how strong was she?

She had obliterated a walking nightmare in two casual moves. And if a child possessed that kind of monstrous power, just how unfathomably strong was the Rogue leader standing right behind her?

A wry, bitter smile twisted across his battered face. To think he had been stupid enough to even consider conspiring against such a terrifying faction.

He felt a sudden, profound wave of gratitude toward his own cowardice. If he had tried to make a move against them earlier, his corpse would have already been rotting deep underground, digested by the soil.

Just as that small, pathetic flash of reassurance appeared on his face, it instantly froze solid. He looked up and saw Salma staring directly down at him, her expression far, far from friendly.

’Ah, fuck...’ he cursed inwardly, every muscle in his body seizing up.

Salma did not bother walking over slowly. She simply closed the distance with a few silent steps, her long dark coat sweeping the frozen dust around him.

She looked down at the trembling drug lord like a predator inspecting a trapped rat.

"Where did you get the core?" Salma asked, her voice cold, flat, and completely devoid of warmth.

Nadir Sha did not even attempt to resist, lie, or construct a clever fabrication. The sheer, suffocating pressure radiating from her dark green aura crushed any remaining willpower he possessed.

"An... an unknown man," Nadir Sha stammered frantically, his hands clawing at the dirt. "A stranger in a hooded cloak... he approached me back at the supply depot before the migration started. He traded it to me for a cache of some medicines... ahem... meth. I swear on my life, I didn’t know it was going to turn him into a monster! I just thought it was a high-grade power source!"

Salma’s dark eyebrows drew together in a deep frown. Her mind raced through the tactical implications at lightning speed.

A person who possessed the wealth and power to casually acquire and trade a Lord-tier core, an item of unimaginable value in this new world, would never do so without a deliberate purpose.

So why would someone capable of obtaining such a rare treasure want to infiltrate a caravan of weak, pathetic humans and hand a ticking time bomb to a low-life drug lord?

That did not make any sense at all. Unless... that mystery man was not trying to help the convoy. He was targeting someone specific within it.

Salma’s heart skipped a sharp, painful beat, the cold composure of the Rogue leader cracking for a single microsecond. Did anyone from her past, her enemies, or the higher echelons of the old regime finally find out about her precious baby?

Did someone trace her movements and send this volatile disaster right to Summer’s doorstep as a hidden trap?

A chilling realization washed over her. Things were becoming infinitely more complicated than she had anticipated.

The enemies hiding in the shadows were starting to make their moves, and she could not afford to be even slightly careless.

She had to tighten every security protocol, double her patrols, and remain entirely vigilant against every shadow moving across the plains.

Nadir Sha took a long, trembling breath in sheer relief as he watched Salma drift away into her own thoughts, seemingly losing interest in him for the moment.

In his mind, he instantly formulated a survival plan. He decided that the absolute second this migration reached Baidu, he would slip away, abandon this miserable group entirely, and set himself up as a ruthless boss somewhere far away from this mother and daughter.

His eyes widened in sudden, absolute terror as a dark, razor-sharp shadow swept silently through the air. Before his brain could process the motion, the shadow passed straight through his neck.

His consciousness went completely, irreversibly dark forever as his head tumbled into the dirt.

Salma watched the headless torso slump heavily into the roadside ditch without even blinking an eye. She turned around smoothly, walking back toward the cluster of watching survivors and soldiers who had witnessed the brief interrogation from afar.

"He is infected," Salma said simply, her tone calm and authoritative enough to silence any questions before they could even form.

The soldiers and civilians all nodded heavily, a collective shiver running down their spines. Though they felt a faint, lingering pang of pity for the man’s gruesome end, no one dared to voice a single objection.

In this brutal new world, anyone showing signs of corruption near the convoy was a walking hazard that needed to be pruned immediately.

Salma cast one final, frigid glance down at the dead man’s remains. Keeping a treacherous, cowardly liability alive was far too dangerous, especially when her daughter’s safety was involved. Eliminating him here and now was the only logical choice.

She turned on her heel and walked over to where Summer was standing, the little girl happily inspecting her newly acquired gauntlets.

As Salma approached, Summer looked up from her metallic gloves and muttered in a quiet, deadpan tone, "He isn’t corrupted. Why’d you kill him?"

Salma was momentarily taken aback by her daughter’s terrifyingly sharp perception. The girl could see right through surface-level excuses without missing a beat.

A fond, slightly amused chuckle slipped past Salma’s lips as she reached down to pat the top of her daughter’s dark hair.

"Because he’s annoying," she muttered with a light laugh.

Summer blinked her crimson eyes, processing her mother’s casual justification. A serious, calculating light flickered deep within her gaze.

"Can I kill annoying people too?" Summer silently gazed towards Derrick who suddenly shivered for unknow reasons.

Summer’s question instantly froze the amused expression right off Salma’s face, turning the Rogue leader’s features rigid with shock.

Salma stared down at the little girl, her green eyes widening in disbelief before narrowing into a sharp, warning glare as she reached out and pinched Summer’s chubby cheeks hard between her fingers.

"Don’t even think about it, you little menace," Salma scolded lightly, though the firm grip on her daughter’s cheeks remained in place to drive the point home.

Salma genuinely believed that Summer was just playing around, tossing out a typical mischievous child remark to test boundaries. She had no idea whatsoever that Summer was being entirely, one hundred percent serious.

Inside her own mind, Summer was already inwardly complaining about the blatant hypocrisy and partiality of her mother. Killing people just because they were annoying was apparently a privilege reserved exclusively for the Rogue leader, while she had to jump through hoops.

’Hmph. It seems I have to defeat my mother quickly to assert dominance and establish who is truly in charge around here,’ Summer thought to herself, her small face scrunching up in stubborn determination as she stared up at the woman holding her cheeks.

Salma stood there, completely oblivious to the fact that her adorable little daughter was already actively plotting a tactical coup to overthrow her authority.